The true Pope has died

Throughout his pontificate, Benedict made a number of statements opposing abortion, which built upon his legacy as Prefect of the CDF to prevent pro-abortion politicians from receiving Holy Communion.

At the very outset of his pontificate, Benedict stated, in reference to abortion, that a Pope cannot “proclaim his own ideas, but rather constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.” This adherence to Divine Law was shown by John Paul II, said Benedict, in his own defense of the unborn.

In his 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate, Benedict wrote: “If there is a lack of respect for the right to life and to a natural death, if human conception, gestation and birth are made artificial, if human embryos are sacrificed to research, the conscience of society ends up losing the concept of human ecology and, along with it, that of environmental ecology.”

Condemning the “anti-birth mentality” he wrote that “Openness to life is at the centre of true development.”

Prior to ascending the papal throne, in 2004 Ratzinger intervened into a debate among the U.S. bishops on the issue of Communion for pro-abortion Catholic politicians. He said in his letter titled “Worthiness to receive Holy Communion,” that a Catholic politician who would vote for “permissive abortion and euthanasia laws” after being duly instructed and warned, “must” be denied Communion.

While he was prefect, the CDF issued its letter “On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons” noting that a homosexual “inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.”

“Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option,” added Ratzinger. “It is not.”

This position he echoed in later documents, and more notably during his 2012 Christmas address to the Roman Curia, when he appeared to denounce same-sex ‘marriage’ and criticized those who “dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being.”

After his resignation, he issued an essay in which he explicitly spoke against “homosexual cliques” in seminaries, “which acted more or less openly and significantly changed the climate in the seminaries.”